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Wednesday, July 25, 2001

By Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Art Critic

This year there are two good reasons to check out Aliquippa Embraces Art, opening Saturday with a daylong festival that begins with an 11 a.m. parade down Franklin Avenue and closes on the notes of the last performer around 6 p.m.

	Therese Varry, who is majoring in art education at Carlow College, paints the ceiling on her untitled work for Aliquippa Embraces Art, which opens Saturday. (Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette)

The first reason has been there since the beginning: The draw of the risk-taking, edgy installation art created in an adrenaline rush by the artists who swelter through some of the hottest days of the year to fabricate a vision that couldn't take form anywhere else.

The second reason is that this ninth annual festival may be the last.

Beverly Gillot, who has been the executive director of the Aliquippa Alliance for Unity and Development since April, said her board and the city have been asking hard questions about the festival, and that it's being subjected to the same examination that other AAUD programs have been receiving since her arrival.

The AAUD organized 15 years ago, Gillot said, and they've begun a "comprehensive strategic planning effort. [When doing that you] always evaluate things that you're spending money on." She stressed that an organization has to be flexible and ready to refocus resources if necessary.

One of the early casualties of that evaluation was development specialist Chris Taylor, who began his association with the festival as an exhibiting artist, became the 1999 artistic coordinator and moved into a full-time position created for him after that.

Gillot said letting Taylor go was a "personnel decision that we had to make." She said that he was "extremely likable" but "I felt like he was wasting his talent. He needed to be pushed out of the nest."

In Taylor's place, she "brought in an economic development consultant, which is what we needed. We did not need an artist. The organization was taking on a different direction."

The 27-year-old Taylor, whom the Post-Gazette had named One to Watch in this year's compilation of the Top 50 Cultural Forces in Pittsburgh, was hired by the North Side Leadership Conference, where he's now a business development specialist.

	To get to Franklin Avenue, take the Aliquippa exit from Route 51, pass the old train station on your right, and make a left at the "T" at the bottom of the hill. The Murphy Building at 464 Franklin Ave. is about three blocks up on the right. The exhibition also will be open from noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays in August. For information, call 724-378-2884.

Taylor said he's hoping the AAUD "continues to bring the arts to the Aliquippa community, especially with the 10th anniversary coming up next year." He cautions that planning for the celebration has to begin now.

Gillot said the annual festival consumes $30,000 out of an annual operating budget of $500,000.

"We're asking where the arts fit in with the revitalization of Aliquippa," Gillot said.

She cites Lawrenceville as a "good example" of how the arts have brought about positive change in a community. "But can it be for everywhere? How can the art community assist with community revitalization? What was the key [in Lawrenceville]?"

Gillot said that not one job was created in Aliquippa nor one new business established because of the arts festival. "How do we capitalize on it to aid in revitalizing?" she asked.

"Artists bring a lot of vision. We need people to imagine what could be, instead of 'what happened to us?' Here sits an economic development professional asking the art community to help us. How?"

Gillot said that she was drawn to the AAUD from a similar position in the Mon Valley because it's "one of the most comprehensive development organizations that I've seen." She applauds the way it combines human services and community development, saying that creating jobs and getting people ready to go back to work have to be done together, "especially in a distressed community."

She feels Aliquippa is on the "verge of a comeback."

David Blenk, who was the executive director of the AAUD until February, left to become the executive director of the Oakland Planning and Development Corporation, where he could use his training as an architect as well as his development skills.

Still, after having served in Aliquippa for 10 years (three as executive director and seven as business development specialist), he's concerned for its future. While hesitating to appear to offer advice to a new administrator, he said, "It would be sad to see [the festival] stop totally. I think the art presence is something Aliquippa needs."

"The magic of the festival," he added, was that the artists would come in and explore an idea and gain a resume item. "In turn, they opened up a dialogue that would not have occurred in Aliquippa without them."

Blenk, who created the full-time job for Taylor, added that he has "wonderful skills" and that he'd hire him again in a minute if he had the opportunity.

In the meantime, there's no lack of enthusiasm for this year's festival as evidenced by the artists who've been working in the former apartments on the second floor of the G.C. Murphy Building like bees in the cells of a hive.

Artistic coordinator Heather Mallak -- an Art Institute of Pittsburgh graduate who's founder and coordinator of Sarrogit, "a multilevel sight and sound performance art group"-- expects the final artist tally to be about 75, including two- and three-dimensional art.

The fanciful, colorful creations of Cheryl Capezzuti's on-site puppet workshop rest waiting to march in the parade along with the fire trucks, baton twirlers, Blue Knights cyclists and Scout troops.

Performers include bands (reggae, jazz, "sick pop" and Christian), poetry and gospel and ballad singers.

Mallak contacted the outreach programs of the Carnegie Science Center, the Frick Art & Historical Center, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Andy Warhol Museum, and for the first time, they'll conduct children's activities on the first floor and in front of the Murphy Building. There will be demonstrations of pottery making by the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and of pysanky.

"Miguel's Native American Pow-Wow" will be held in the library. There will be "live action painting" by Kevin "the Nerve" Wenner and spontaneous happenings and demonstrations will punctuate the day.

Gillot says that she'll be watching to see how the community interacts with this, her first festival. Whether it continues will be "up to the board, up to the outcome of our evaluation. And it's up to the community. If the community wants it, then we'll do it. If the community doesn't embrace it, then it's just another program that we run."

If that's the criterion, then the festival may have a chance.

For the second year, the Sound the Alarm Ministries on Franklin Avenue has planned its Summer Fest to coincide with the festival. On a sidewalk sign, the church advertises an afternoon Saturday of food, fun and games.

And Aliquippa resident Paul McDaniels, who will sing love ballads at 5:15 p.m. on the festival stage, points out that the festival is good for the town because it gives the whole city a chance to come together and have fun.

In Aliquippa, people talk like everything happened in the past, he says. "But we can still make things happen." People come together at the festival "like a family. Black, white, blue, green -- it doesn't matter."